Three-point proposal in email
to all Ministers for world-class universities – Royal Commission,
appointment of “best and brightest” and repeal of UUCA

________________________________

Media Conference Statement

by Lim Kit Siang________________________________

(Penang DAP Hqrs,
Monday):I have today sent an email to
all Ministers to urge them to assume collective responsibility for the deep
and worsening crisis of higher education highlighted by Times Higher
Education Supplement (THES) World University Ranking 2005, which saw University of Malaya
(UM) falling 80 places from 89th to 169th position while Universiti Sains
Malaysia (USM) fell more than 89 places from 111th position and got knocked
out of the Top 200 Universities bracket altogether.

My email to the
Ministers said:

The principle of
collective ministerial responsibility for the deep and worsening higher
education crisis would not permit any Minister to disclaim responsibility
or just blame the whole higher education mess on one or two persons, such
as the Higher Education Minister, Datuk Dr. Shafie Salleh and the
Cabinet-rank Special Higher Education Envoy, Datuk Seri Effendi Norwawi.

On August
24, 2005, the Cabinet approved the establishment of the 18th
public university, Universiti Darul Iman Malaysia (UDM) in Terengganu which
will be fully operational by before the end of the Ninth Malaysia Plan
2006-2010.

The Cabinet
is responsible not only for the quantity but also quality of higher
educational institutions in the country. This is why at the
Cabinet meeting on Wednesday (Nov. 9), Ministers must individually and
collectively address the acute problem of Malaysia’s prolonged and
worsening crisis of higher education, as well as the scandalous response of
the University of Malaya Vice Chancellor Prof. Dr. Datuk Hashim Yaacob to
the latest THES World University Ranking which made a national and
international joke of UM as well as Malaysia.

At the June centennial
celebrations of University of Malaya, Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib
Razak threw a
challenge to the university to raise its 89th ranking among the
world’s top 200 universities to 50 by the year 2020.

I
had criticized the UM Vice Chancellor for his lack of leadership and vision
to be content at the 50th ranking among the world’s Top 200
universities in 2020, when the country should aim to have at least two
Malaysian universities to be ranked among the World’s Top 50 Universities
by the end of the Ninth Malaysia Plan in 2010 – University of Malaya by 2008
and a second university by 2010.

However, in
a matter of a few months after the DPM’s challenge, UM is faced with the
crisis of remaining within the world’s Top 200 universities in the THES
World University Ranking in the coming years.

The Cabinet should
realise that the challenge facing higher education in Malaysia is not for
UM to achieve any breakthrough to be among the world’s Top 50 Universities,
but for the nation’s premier university to avoid suffering the fate of USM
of being knocked out of the Top 200 Universities Ranking next year or during
the course of the Ninth Malaysia Plan beginning next year.

The national crisis of
higher education is not limited to UM or USM but afflicts all other public
universities. This is the cry of one Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM)
graduate on my blog yesterday:

“A few years back when I was a
student, I thought UPM overtook USM as 2nd best university in Malaysia! What
has happened to UPM now? It was not even in the top 200 ranking for both
last year and this year.

Remember the Asiaweek report in 2000, UM was ranked a lowly 47th position
out of 77 universities in the Asiaweek's 2000 ranking of Best Universities
in the region, with UPM in 52nd and USM in 57th position.”

In the
Cabinet deliberation, Ministers should acquaint themselves of another
respected international ranking of universities, the Academic Ranking of
500 Top Universities in the World by the Institute of Higher Education,
Shanghai Jiao Tong University. For the third year of its World’s Top 500
Ranking, not a single university from Malaysia was included in the List.
Among the countries with universities ranked in the Jiao Tong University’s
Top 500 Universities are:

Japan

33

Australia

13

China

8

South Korea

8

Israel

6

New Zealand

5

China – Tw

5

China - Hk

4

India

3

Singapore

2

Permit me to
make three quick proposals for the Cabinet’s consideration to break the back
of the deep and worsening crisis of higher education in Malaysia:

Firstly, the
establishment of Royal Commission on World-Class Universities in Malaysia,
not headed by former government servants but eminent academicians, such as
Royal Professor Ungku Aziz, former UM Vice Chancellor Professor Syed Hussein
Alatas, former Vice Chancellor of Hong Kong University Professor Wang Gung
Wu or distinguished academicians like Dr. Chandra Muzaffar and Prof. K.S.
Jomo.

Secondly,
the appointment of the “best and brightest” to lead the universities,
whether as Vice Chancellor or Deans, starting with the appointment of an
outstanding university academic as Vice Chancellor of University of Malaya.
The Cabinet should fully endorse the article by Tan Siok Choo, daughter of
former Finance Minister Tun Tan Siew Sin, in the Sun today “Hiring a
foreign CEO is no sell-out”.

In United
Kingdom, world-renowned universities are headed by foreigners like New
Zealander Dr. John Hood, Vice Chancellor of Oxford University, and the
Chancellor of University of Nottingham (the alma mater of the DPM) is the
distinguished Chinese physicist Professor Fujia Yang.

But before
foreigners are appointed to head Malaysian universities, aren’t there
competent and qualified non-Malay candidates to be appointed Vice
Chancellors, or have they to continue to go abroad if they are to be
internationally distinguished academicians or to be appointed vice
chancellors of universities which are in the World’s Top 50 Universities
like Hong Kong University (No.41) and Nanyang Technological University,
Singapore (No. 48)?

Thirdly, the
repeal of the Universities and University Colleges Act (UUCA) to restore the
critical faculties of inquiry, meritocracy and academic to usher the
return of an university ethos of academic excellence, social awareness and
national commitment by academicians and students with the ability to know
the difference between right and wrong and the passion to right injustices.

Let the
Cabinet meeting on Wednesday end the rot to excellence, quality and
standards in Malaysian universities so that Malaysians, whether
academicians, students or the ordinary citizen, can hold their heads high in
the international society with regard to the global ranking of Malaysian
universities.